Iran confirms man stoned to death for adultery

Associated Press

TEHRAN, Iran: A man convicted of adultery was stoned to death last week in a village in northern Iran, an Iranian judiciary spokesman said Tuesday, the first time in years that the country has confirmed such an execution.

Jafar Kiani was stoned to death Thursday in Aghchekand, 200 kilometers (124 miles) west of Tehran, said spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi.

Death sentences are carried out in Iran after they are upheld by the Supreme Court. Under Iran's Islamic law, adultery is punishable by stoning.

Jamshidi did not elaborate on how the stoning was carried out. Under Islamic rulings, a man is usually buried up to his waist, while a woman is buried up to her neck with her hands also buried. Those carrying out the verdict then throw stones until the condemned dies.

International human rights groups have long criticized stoning in Iran as a "cruel and barbaric" punishment.

Before Iran's confirmation, U.N. human rights chief Louise Arbour condemned the execution, her spokesman said.

"The execution has apparently gone ahead despite Iran's moratorium on execution by stoning, a moratorium that had been in effect since 2002," said Jose Diaz of U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

"Stoning is in clear violation of international law," Diaz said in Geneva. He said Arbour considered stoning to be a form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment that is prohibited under an international treaty that Iran has signed.

In Oslo, Norway, Iran's ambassador was summoned by Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere to protest the stoning, the Norwegian Foreign Ministry said.

Stoere was "deeply upset" that the death penalty had been carried out and called stoning an "inhumane and barbaric method of punishment," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Frode Andersen.

The reported execution came two weeks after international pressure, including protests from Norway, caused Iranian officials to delay carrying out the sentence against Kiani and his female companion, Mokarrameh Ebrahimi, who also was sentenced to death by stoning. It was not known if a date had been set for her execution.

Norway's embassy in Teheran will try to arrange for representatives of the international community to visit Ebrahimi in prison, the Norwegian foreign ministry said.

The couple had reportedly been imprisoned for 11 years.